Answering Bunnies and Vultures

          Today, I'll be answering an excerpt from a YouTube video called: “Answering Objections to Calvinism,” by Bro. Jeff Durbin. The video is here:  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P11Zj1X_D8). 

          The relevant segment will be 37:46-39:49, but please, by all means watch the entire video and hear his points in context - I've simply shortened it for time's sake. If you are interested, I have a more complete rebuttal that covers all of Bro. Durbin’s points in the video. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll be dealing with 37:46-39:49. In this segment, he uses and explains an analogy of two different animals and their diets to answer the question, “Are you [Calvinists] denying that we’re making choices?”

Bro. Durbin tells us about a vulture and a rabbit occupying what seem to be separate but identical rooms. Each room contains a pile of meat and a pile of carrots. When given the choice, the vulture will, by its nature, freely choose the meat, and the rabbit will, by its nature, freely choose the carrots. Because the Intelligent Designer is sovereign over their natures, He is also sovereign over both of each of their free choices, and the choice is still free. Similarly, a sinner will, by his or her nature, freely choose sin over God. Because God is sovereign over the sinner’s evil nature, He is thus sovereign over the sinner’s choice to reject God, and the choice is still free. Admittedly, this analogy is attractive, but it has a fundamental problem.

          The analogy leaves us without any cause from blaming the analogical choosers for their choices. I do not think that Jeff is trying to say that we ought to punish a vulture for choosing a meaty meal over a vegetarian option, or chastise a rabbit for eating vegetables instead of carrion. However, the strength of an analogy is determined by the extent the two sides are able to correlate. The analogy is (by its nature, ironically enough) rather distant from the subject it’s describing. Bro. Durbin rightfully blames a sinner for his or her choice of sin over God, yet his analogy leaves us without any cause from blaming the analogical choosers for their choices. When we see vultures eating dead animals, we find no fault – it is their nature. When we see rabbits eating lettuce or carrots, we don’t punish them. It is simply their nature. They are doing what they were designed to do. If the analogy is true, we ought to find no fault with a person whose decisions are dictated by their nature. The (natural?) logical inferences from this analogy do not seem to allow for anything else.

          Moreover, if I may stretch the analogy slightly, let us imagine what might be done to these animals if they were to choose ‘incorrectly.’ Let’s say that the vulture (whose anatomy demands meat in order to survive) ate all carrots and no meat. What should be done? Should the vulture be corrected? Of course. And if the rabbit (whose anatomy demands plant matter in order to survive) ate all meat and no carrots, should it also be corrected? Yes. For whose sake? This absurd behavior would be (hypothetically speaking) a defiance against their nature and an affront to their Designer, the one who gave them their nature. These animals ought to be corrected, not only for the sake of their own respective health, but also for the sake of their Designer. Clearly, we do not punish animals for eating what they are designed to eat, but we feel obligated to correct animals for eating things that hurt them – i.e., things that they aren’t designed to eat. Violating one’s nature is perversion, abomination (Leviticus 18:22-23; Romans 1:26-27) This is a very interesting (and I think, hitherto untapped) angle on the analogy.

          So, if the analogy is indeed accurate to reality and we apply the analogy in this manner, it seems reasonable to deduce that sinners ought to be blamed for their decisions, not because they have acted in accordance with their nature, but because their decisions have violated their nature, and insulted the One who gave them their nature.

When You Find Out You Sound Like a Jerk

    Have you ever had the experience of doing something, and thinking you had done it well, until someone else came along with a fresh perspective and told you you hadn't done such a great job? This has happened to me before, and I try to make myself double check every time. After all, there's always the possibility of me being wrong.

    Well, I've been doing this blog for a while now, and one of my best friends just read some of my most recent material and told me that I sounded arrogant in my blog. I didn't believe him. But there was the chance (as always) that I could turn out to be wrong, so I went back and reread a couple of my posts - and almost melted into the carpet.

    He was right.

    I couldn't believe myself. Even I didn't want to take myself s seriously, let alone finish reading  the article. As I read with reader's eyes, I could recall my sentiments and my good intentions, the careful selection of words and phrases to avoid offending people, to sound conversational, to conserve time and page space - but I could also see the very unexpected result of that effort spilling out in front of me, rolling in the opposite direction that I had intended. My curtness turned to brusqueness. My conversational phrasing turned into snide quips. My passion wore a false mask of hate. Where did this come from? Did I write this?

    Have you ever watched a toddler use crayons? Many of them are incredibly meticulous, leaning in, squinting at the construction paper, putting in the effort - only for their labors to produce an incomprehensible mess of lines, dots and scribbles, 10% of which end up on the table rather than the paper. Effort does not equal immediate accomplishment of the goal.

    I have labored to make this blog as polite and cordial as possible. I have tried hard to avoid writing in offensive ways. But like the toddler, I'm finding I'm not very good at it, so my efforts don't produce the desired result.

    But every once in a while, we get to watch a toddler's scribbles turn into a child's messy stick figures and boxy house drawings, and then perhaps into the intelligent gestures and sketches of an adolescent's hands - which might one day become the masterpieces of the next Michelangelo.

    I'm not very good at sounding like I'm not a jerk. But I try not to, and it breaks my heart when I fall down on the job. And as long as I have good friends (and readers), who are willing to tell me (for my own good) when I sound bad, I can rub out my scribbles and try to draw a straighter line.

    So, hopefully, I'll be sounding much less like a jerk soon. I'm a work in progress.

    Thank God for Christian brothers and sisters.